Joan Allen, Bruce Norris premiere at Steppenwolf next season

The Steppenwolf Theatre Company has announced its 2013-14 season, a slate that features the first stage appearance by ensemble member Joan Allen in more than 20 years as well as a number of new works — several from lesser-known playwrights.

Allen will appear in "The Wheel," a new play from Scotland by Zinnie Harris about a young woman who chases her father across war zones in different times and places. Tina Landau directs the work, which premiered at the Edinburgh Festival and has its American premiere in Chicago on Sept. 12.

Next is another British play, Nina Raine's "Tribes," a big off-Broadway hit for director David Cromer. Austin Pendleton will direct the Steppenwolf production. It's a piece about both the divisions within the deaf community and an academic family that likes to talk. Performances begin in December.

"Russian Transport," a play by Erika Sheffer first seen off-Broadway in 2012, will be directed at Steppenwolf by Yasen Peyankov. Featuring Tim Hopper, Mariann Mayberry and Alan Wilder, it's a piece about the exploits and travails of a Russian family in Sheapshead Bay, Brooklyn. The show, which is Sheffer's first play, will run Feb. 6 to May 11, 2014 in the Upstairs Theatre.

New works continue April 3 with "The Way West" by Mona Mansour, directed by Amy Morton. This world premiere from the New York-based writer is set in a modern-day California town.

Finally, the Pulitzer Prize-winning scribe Bruce Norris ("Clybourne Park") premieres his latest drama, "The Qualms," at Steppenwolf in the summer of 2014. Pam MacKinnon, who staged "Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" both at the Steppenwolf and on Broadway, is the director of this dark comedy set in a beachside apartment complex.